


rahasia di padang pasir

by magma_maiden



Series: heartless, dragonless, sunless [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Naruto
Genre: F/M, Female Senju Hashirama, Gen, Implied Relationship, Secret Babies, Worldbuilding, fusion fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25257577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magma_maiden/pseuds/magma_maiden
Summary: a secret was spilled in the sands as shizune watched her companion reunited with an old acquaintance.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Series: heartless, dragonless, sunless [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/850779
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	rahasia di padang pasir

**Author's Note:**

> naruto (c) masashi kishimoto  
> a song of ice and fire (c) g.r.r. martin
> 
> no profit taken from this work
> 
> this sets few years after _obito pergi ke pasar_ , since this is kinda following canon, this is around orochimaru's escape from konoha while tsunade was also being inactive.

“Next!”

A sharp command from the interior of a hut set a woman’s body in motion. She tossed a bloodied cloth in the firepit, briefly watching the flames licking the makeshift bandage. The sun was far from setting, but the fire had started to burn clothes and bandages stained with blood. The heat made sweat clung to her cheeks, but she withstood it and kept the fire going.

Once the cloth disappeared into ashes, she nodded at the other occupant of the hut—an elderly man whose face was hidden by a rugged shawl wrapped around his body, offering her hand to help him walk.

“Oh no, I can,” he refused, albeit his hunched back was shaking. The long bench shook once free from his weight. His wooden staff barely held his weight. As she predicted, his toe hit a jutting rock underneath the rug spread between the bench and the entrance to another room.

“Careful! The floor is uneven…” She caught his arm at the right moment. It was thin, wrapped in coarse sleeves, and cold.

Alarmingly cold.

The young woman shrugged it off. It must be his disease, or whatever it is that brought him here.

“That's so nice of you,” he thanked her with his deep and hoarse voice. Several strands of long dark hair were visible underneath the shawl. “What's your name, young lady?”

“Shizune. It's Shizune.“ She opened the heavy curtain into the other room, letting the man enter, and a young boy with a tear streaked face walked out. One of his arms was bandaged tight. The elderly walked past the curtain, then closed it.

“She's scary,” the boy whispered to her as Shizune wrapped a shawl around him.

“She's kind,” she replied, smiling. “Just stern. You feeling better?”

The boy nodded. He came an hour ago with a bad arm, apparently brushing off a deadly cactus while he was chasing a runaway lamb. Instead of going home, he went to this hut, knowing a healer was staying there temporarily.

The same commanding voice called from the inside. “Shizune, walk him home!”

“Yes!”

“I can go myself,” the boy insisted in a low voice.

Shizune grabbed her own shawl. “Just in case you passed out again, alright?”

He sighed deeply, but didn't object to her again.

Harsh wind blew sands all over their bodies just a few steps outside the hut. Shizune leaned at a date tree along with the boy. Sand grains gathered around their feet, the smaller ones slipped underneath her toenails. She shook her feet once the wind dissipated then resumed their walk.

“Where’s your home?”

“It’s on the other side of the village.”

She let the boy lead the way. The huts looked so similar, save for one or two that functioned as a shop or tavern. The tavern was why they were in this remote village. Trade caravans frequently stopped there, bringing rare liquors from distant lands. Her companion would spend the whole night tasting different drinks, while spending their hard earned money in a game of dice.

Shizune inwardly sighed. If her uncle was still alive, maybe she wouldn’t be in this situation. She was lucky she could persuade her to stay here, in a village so close to the Fire border. Shizune was yearning for home. The older woman did her best to avoid it.

After giving the boy back to his worried family, Shizune trekked back with a pouch filled with spiced mutton stripes. It’s a local delicacy that paired well with local cactus wine. She’d love it so much!

Good food is a good bribe to start talking about home, too.

The hut they used were a bit far from other houses. She liked it, although some locals thought it’s strange they willingly chose to stay there. It’s unsafe, especially at night…

Shizune stopped in her tracks. The hut was only a few steps ahead, but her instincts told her that a danger was lurking inside.

That’s ridiculous, nobody was more dangerous than her companion—when she’s sober, that is.

She had been treating people, though. She was sober.

Shizune pulled her sleeves, readying her poisoned needles. The air inside was still, deathly still, as if there were two fighters facing each other, hands ready on their sword hilts.

“Lower your arm, Shizune.”

She was startled by that request, but her arm was ready in the air. “Is it... really alright?”

“It is alright. Stay where you are.”

Shizune lowered her sleeve, but her heart was still pounding madly. Her eyes were locked at the entrance to the other room, which was barred by a weathered curtain.

“Does she know?” The voice belonged to the old man Shizune helped earlier. Same voice, but seemingly belonged to a different person—someone more sinister, someone with less than kind intentions.

“No.” Her answer was firm.

A chuckle. “A pity. Little girls like her do love fairytales. She shall appreciate it.”

“You’re not here for some nostalgic sentiment, Orochimaru.”

Shizune froze. She recognized that name—an old friend, no, acquaintance of her companion. Someone who had gone rogue, a wanted person in all fragments of the realm.

“Of course. Why would I risk having my neck broken by an old friend just so I can have a drink with her?” He laughed bitterly. “Right, Princess?”

Silence. He spoke again, “why don’t you join us here, Shizune?”

“Orochimaru—”

“She’d know sooner or later.” A pause. “Did you tell her uncle, though?”

The air trembled with anger, and Shizune waited for the familiar impact to descend.

It never came.

* * *

“Walk.”

Someone else was behind her, pointing something sharp to her exposed neck. Shizune walked, joining the other two people. In the other room, a rug was spread for her clients. The current occupants sat cross legged across each other, maintaining a rather far distance befitting two warriors gauging each other’s strength.

“Lady Tsunade, I—”

Tsunade, her companion, sat across a dark haired man. His features were pale, snake-like. He didn’t look any older than Tsunade herself.

“This companion of yours,” Tsunade said, glancing at the person behind Shizune and fixing her coat, “does he know?”

“I share all my research with him. My conclusions included.” His voice was strange, not befitting his face. “Sit,” he told the other two.

Shizune sat on the rug’s edge. The other person kneeled behind her.

“And what would you gain from me, if you got my answer?” Tsunade asked again, her tone was harsher. “You rarely do something that won’t benefit you.”

“That hurts coming from you.” Orochimaru sighed. “I’m a scholar, first and foremost. Satiating my curiosity is a priority. You’re smart, but you can’t fool everyone in your whole life.”

“I can guess you want something from me, for your experiments.”

Orochimaru laughed. “Enough with the small talk. Just say yes or no—Tsunade, are you a Princess of the Realm?”

She raised an eyebrow. “The Realm is no more.”

“Wrongly worded! My bad, my bad…”

Shizune blinked, confused. The Realm, or the empire that once bound the five elemental nations and its smaller domains, was broken by its last empress, the woman who’d become the Fire’s first Hokage. Her heir was a prince who died on the throne as a boy, too young to sire a child.

But those happened many decades ago.

“I remember when we were presented to the carved banyan as a team,” Orochimaru continued. “It wasn’t as big as today. All of us couldn’t linger long under its branches. Jiraiya nearly passed out. Even our teacher went pale. You were fine though.” He paused, waiting for her reaction. “That is the reason why afterwards I asked you whether you have an Uchiha grandparent.”

“You know I’m not related to them. Otherwise, my hair would be darker than yours.” Tsunade narrowed her eyes. “I believe we’ve talked about this once.”

Shizune’s uncle once said the reason so many people have dark hair nowadays was because after the civil war, many Uchiha married people outside their clan to establish kinship. Still, none of their descendants’ dark hair was as dark as an Uchiha. Even their sharingan often never manifested.

“Lord Orochimaru, we don’t have much time.”

“I’m aware of it, Kabuto.” He turned to her again. “Do you still have that necklace?”

“...What of it?”

It was behind her coat. Shizune knew. She never parted from it. Considering its history…

“You said it’s a gift from your paternal grandfather to his wife, your grandmother, who both passed in your father’s childhood.”

No, Shizune never heard of this part.

Orochimaru opened his palm. “May I see it?”

“No.”

“Thought so. Kabuto.”

The man behind Shizune took out a scroll, rolling it open on the rug. “This is a replica of a painting taken from the palace,” he explained. “The original is kept by the Uchiha.”

The painting was a man and a woman, both dark haired, albeit the man’s darker than the woman’s. They were smiling, their arms linked. They looked young, probably around twenty years old. He wore a dark attire with red embroidery meandering around the edges. The woman wore green, with a necklace of similar color nestled atop her cleavage. It was quite detailed that Shizune instantly recognized the necklace with another she often seen worn on a different woman’s neck.

“Your ward seems familiar with it,” Orochimaru commented.

Shizune’s cheeks warmed, ashamed.

Tsunade clicked her tongue, opening her coat to show the pendant she hid. “It’s just a necklace. A noble’s necklace desired by commoners… it wouldn’t be a surprise if there are any cheaper imitations. My grandparents worked in the Senju castle.”

“I believe it’s… impudent, to order an imitation of one’s mistress’ jewelry.” His yellow eyes darted back to the pendant. “It’s not a cheap gem either; it stores its owner’s chakra.” He grinned. “Any decent sensor could hold it and tell you it’s not your chakra in the pendant—”

“Possibly my father, who had it with him.”

“Your father wasn’t a shinobi, and wasn’t he dark haired?”

“His Uchiha blood—if any—must have diluted so much that the trait didn’t pass on to me.”

“Your brother Nawaki had yellow hair too, but he had a different father. I was there when his team was presented to the carved banyan, Tsunade. He got sick.

“Now, let’s return to the woman in the painting.”

Shizune knew the woman was the realm’s last empress, the Realm-Breaker, the first Hokage. She single-handedly captured the chakra beasts and gifted them to the elemental nations as compensation before the Breaking.

She didn’t rule long as the Hokage. She died of grief, people said.

“The scholars said the last emperor and empress had seven children,” Kabuto spoke. “They also wrote that none of their children reached adulthood, with five of them being stillbirth and miscarriages. But, in the palace garden, in a section built for their children, there were only six graves. The Empress was pregnant six times.”

“I thought it was a miscalculation at first,” Orochimaru continued, “but the same phrase remained in old scholars’ books. Seven children. I kept looking at old archives until I found a note describing the Empress’ first birth. In a winter, barely two seasons after her marriage to the Emperor.

“You always prayed one day in a winter, Tsunade, on the day you believe to be your father’s birthday.”

Shizune gulped. During her time living nomadic with Tsunade, the same behavior persisted. They would visit a carved banyan, or a shrine that housed its statue, one day every winter. She wouldn’t touch alcohol and stayed solemn throughout the day.

“And you also said… your father had a twin.” Orochimaru closed the scroll.

“I blabbered too much, didn’t I?” Tsunade smirked.

Sage. An impact could happen anytime…

“You tell interesting things when you’re drunk, Tsunade.”

“If you’ve forgotten… the Burned Prince was Unnamed post-mortem; by request from his uncle.”

“Our teacher was his student. Don’t you think it’s uncharacteristic of him?”

“The prince was his nephew—”

“And so was my father,” Tsunade finally said. “Is curiosity really your sole aim, Orochimaru?”

Huh?

“My lady, you didn’t mean…” Shizune couldn’t find the right words. Her companion, the woman who took her in after she’s orphaned… was descended from the last Emperor and Empress of the Realm. She observed Tsunade’s features, realizing something. “But you don’t have dark hair, you don’t have sharingan… you don’t even look like an Uchiha.”

“Her father did,” Orochimaru replied, seemingly satisfied. “He was a splitting image of the late emperor. I only saw him once, with Jiraiya. He did wonder why you don’t use the name Uchiha, if your father was one.”

“Lady Tsunade’s father was also Unnamed,” Kabuto said.

“If I told you your hypotheses were correct, would you kindly leave?”

Orochimaru smiled. “I wish we had more time so I could drop you something about the hidden research dungeon, but my tongue is at risk.”

* * *

From the window, Shizune watched yellow dots of torches in the distance. Apparently some local ninja were alerted about the presence of a wanted person.

“Close the curtain, Shizune. We’ll leave by dawn.”

Tsunade was examining the scroll they left. It was longer, and had more painting other than the late rulers. Further below was the second Hokage, reading a book. Then the former heir of the realm, the late princess, seemingly sewing. Then two identical young boys.

“My father and the Burned Prince.”

She gave the scroll to Shizune, who was going to close it when she spotted there was more underneath the boys’ picture. It was a girl, around three. Below was a boy, in the same age. They both were dark haired.

Shizune didn’t know the painter, but still she thought it’s strange to include two random children’s paintings in a scroll of the royal family.

Maybe... maybe they weren't as insignificant as she thought. Who are they?


End file.
